


a dash of brio, a dash of drag

by afrocurl, ninemoons42



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Crossdressing, Drag Ball, Drag Party, Gen, Hot Chick in a Badass Suit, Hot Guy in a Miniskirt, Lingerie, Male-Female Friendship, Suit Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-28
Updated: 2013-03-28
Packaged: 2017-12-06 19:17:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/739181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afrocurl/pseuds/afrocurl, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninemoons42/pseuds/ninemoons42
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Okay, so Charles owes Emma a fairly big favor and now it's time for her to collect.</p><p>She has something very, very designer in mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a dash of brio, a dash of drag

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the free space on our shared trope bingo card. Trope used: crossdressing.

It’s been a long week of meetings upon meetings and deciding upon silly little trivialities. Oh, she wants to make sure that the _canapés_ will be both chic and delicious, and she wants to know if there will even ever be enough booze for everyone coming, _and_ she wants to impress upon the people at the party venue that the bathrooms must be kept scrupulously clean at all times no matter what the goings-on - but one does tire of the bother and the fuss after a while.

And she’s been planning this for weeks now: a big bad fancy dress party of a drag ball, deliberately calculated to catch the attention of everyone who’s everyone and everyone who has pretensions of being someone.

With a sigh of relief she turns the final set of checks and clipboards and notes over to her army of assistants. It’s eleven in the morning and she feels like she’s been stomped flat already, which is so not what she wants to do for this particular night, for this particular party.

All thoughts of a long scrub and a glass of wine and maybe a contemplative hour doing her own nails in relative peace fly out the windows, however, when she makes it back to her house and finds two large boxes sitting innocently in the foyer. One of them has a very high-fashion label printed on, and the other is just plain white board, completely unassuming.

Emma closes the door behind her and kicks off her heels - and then she does a victory dance right there and then, a little jig. Her laughter bubbles up relentlessly and she gives in to it.

If the laughter has more than a hint of a dark edge to it, she takes it as something to revel in.

After the first flush of that exuberance has passed she flicks her phone back on and hits a speed-dial button. “Hello, Charles? Get your pert little arse over here now. Packages.”

“I really don’t know how you talked me into this one,” he says, but he sounds more curious than resigned, if anything.

“Because you owe me,” Emma says breezily. “And I warned you right at the beginning of our acquaintance that I would collect. It might be later rather than sooner, but I’d collect - and you had better believe that I’m doing that right now.”

“Okay, okay,” Charles laughs, and then he hangs up on her. 

The _minx_.

No matter, Emma thinks as she prances to her bathroom and turns the hot water all the way up. There’ll be time enough for later, when they both get dressed.

-

Charles has always regretted owing Emma Frost a favor, and this is not the first time he’s considered that he might regret it for the rest of his life. Her mind works in certain and evil ways, and she sneaks up on people and ambushes them when they least expect her, and as a consequence he’s been dreading the day when she calls in her chit, calls in her favor.

Right now, he’s nervous as all hell, though he thinks that there might well be a method to her madness.Tonight is the night of her big drag ball, and with the lilt in her voice on the phone earlier, Charles thinks that her call has everything to do with that event - and the accompanying request for his presence.

Once he gets to her place he catches his breath in front of the door before he raises a hand to knock - but before his knuckles even hit the wood, the door opens on Emma looking gorgeous. He’d been hearing about that suit she’d been planning for almost as long as she’s been planning this drag ball.

Hearing about it is one thing. Actually seeing it is something else entirely.

The thin black pinstripes are the perfectly contrasting accent on her blinding white suit, and the crimson blouse and red ballet flats set her the rest of her off flawlessly. Charles can’t remember the last time he saw her wear anything other than white, but as it is now, he hopes she’ll do it again soon.

“Hello,” he says, still admiring her figure.

“You’re late and we’re due to arrive in an hour and a half. Chop chop, so you can change and I won’t be late to my own drag ball,” she snaps before she opens the door wide for him to enter. “Your outfit is in the guest bedroom. Now, shoo!”

Charles all but runs for it, but seeing the box left for him on the bed makes him pull up short. He’s half terrified to open it, but knows that he must.

Besides, the cardinal rule for this chit is _follow directions first, ask questions later_.

Carefully, he pries the lid off the box - and when he sees what he’s inside he’s absolutely torn between crying in embarrassment and laughing with fierce pride.

Inside the box is a pair of super-soft fishnet stockings and an accompanying garter belt; one black leather micromini-skirt that seems indecently short even for Emma’s tastes; a sheer white robe with tiny black and white accents. The red stilettos are just a cap to the outrageous good taste of the whole thing.

Charles _wants_ to wear the outfit, god help him.

And god bless Emma for coming up with something like this.

His outfit will complement hers very nicely: there is something similar in the color scheme, but the skimpiness of his clothes will go beautifully with her covered-up aesthetics. Eagerly, he shucks his clothes - and he thanks his lucky stars that he usually wears briefs when he sees the pair of women’s bikini pants at the bottom of the box.

-

They find out the hard way that the drag ball has backed traffic up for several blocks, and normally Emma would fly into a rage at this kind of petty little delay, but this is news that makes her smile instead.

That smile only grows the more she peers out her window, because the people flowing past on the sidewalk are all dressed to the nines, black and white and red everywhere, and they can all only be going to one place.

She turns to Charles; he’s holding a small mirror and peering doubtfully at the end of his nose. “Problem?” she asks.

He shrugs. “Not used to wearing makeup.”

“Neither am I,” she says. “The one thing about having flawless skin relative to the rest of humanity.”

That makes him snort and then cover his lipsticked mouth and then start laughing, full-on amused, and she snickers quietly and tallies up another point in her favor.

Also, this means that she can look at Charles without him being self-conscious.

She’d thought she could pull off the look he’s currently working, but knows now that she’s been left far, far behind in his dust. There is such a delicious contrast between the broad shoulders and the glitter dusted sparingly on cheekbones and wrists; between the flat chest and the fishnets. He is even marvelously comfortable in the shoes, and she knows for a fact that he’d rather wear those atrociously muddy boots of his to any kind of opening night or dinner party.

It had taken her _months_ to get used to heels like that.

“I don’t think we can get any further than this,” the driver says after a moment.

“That’s fine, I think we can take it from here,” Emma says, and then because she might be holding this over his head but they are also, after all, friends, she turns back to Charles. “But if you’d rather, ah, delay your appearance we can do that too.”

“I’m not scared,” he says.

God help her, he really, really doesn’t sound that at all.

Everyone’s going to remember her precisely because she showed up at her party with _this_ Charles on her arm.

And that’s just fine by her.

“All right, then!” She throws the car door open, and luckily does not put a dent in the Lambo idling a few feet away. She leans back in and extends a hand to Charles. “Going my way?”

“Absolutely,” he drawls, and he springs out and walks tall at her side, and not even their giggling can mar the effect that they immediately have on everyone heading onward.

-

The three blocks that they walk are easy enough for him, and just as they climb the steps of the Met’s entrance, everything changes for him.

He’s always stood straight, but in that moment, he stands straighter and steps with purpose. Emma is at his side and they make a fine pair gliding up, with everyone in their finery milling about. At the top, he lets out a breath and looks down at the work Emma’s put into this. “It’s gorgeous,” he says, reverently.

“Thank you,” Emma says, just as she grips tighter to his arm.

“Shall we?” he asks, though he knows the answer already. Just as they did before, they glide down the stairs and stand waiting for all the room’s attention.


End file.
